IP Strategy Holdings, a Washington state company that pivoted from spirits distilling to holding $DATA cryptocurrency tokens, filed notice with the SEC on August 17, 2026 that it expects a net loss of about $80 to $86 million for the first six months of 2026, driven mainly by a fall in the value of those tokens.
Shares closed 235.89% higher at $7.39 after the filing, from a previous close of $2.20. Dollar volume was about $767 million across roughly 1.3 million trades. The free float is about 10.2 million shares, representing 96.3% of shares outstanding. Short volume on the session was about 17.9 million shares, 57.24% of reported volume.
The token losses account for most of the anticipated result. The notice states that $64 to $68 million of the expected loss reflects the fall in the fair value of $DATA tokens the company holds on its balance sheet — the tokens remain held, but are now marked at a much lower value. A further $9.7 to $11.7 million came from realised losses on actual sales of digital assets. For context, the company's net loss over the same period a year earlier, when it was still primarily a distiller, was $10.3 million.
Revenue tells a parallel story. Total net revenue for the first half of 2026 is expected to be roughly $2.2 to $2.6 million, roughly flat with the year-ago period — but almost none of it now comes from spirits. The filing says about $1.8 to $2.2 million in new revenue came from the company's $IP token validator service, which launched in September 2025, and from premiums earned under a covered-call program started in January 2026. A covered call is the sale of the right to buy shares the seller already owns; the seller keeps the premium whether or not the option is exercised. The filing says spirits revenue fell by a roughly equal amount over the same period.
The figures are preliminary and unaudited. The company says it expects to file the full quarterly report within five days of the original due date.
No press release or other SEC filing explaining the stock's move on August 17 was found beyond the late-filing notice itself. The move may reflect short covering or momentum buying in a low-float stock.